


we have lingered in the chambers of the sea

by mygalfriday (BrinneyFriday)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, as usual, idek, it's alyssa's fault, kind of a calypso/davy jones au, sailor/sea goddess au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 16:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4311759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrinneyFriday/pseuds/mygalfriday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She watched him, this young man with a boy’s hair and the eyes of an old god. The water suited him. She suited him. When she swallowed him in her waves, he sank deeper, soundless, weightless. He drowned beautifully.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we have lingered in the chambers of the sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heavenisalibrary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/gifts).



> Italic quotes at the beginning of each section belong to Pirates of the Caribbean, specifically Calypso and Davy Jones. Story title from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot because I am a cheesy hipster who went for the obvious title. Don’t judge me.

_“a woman as changing and harsh and untamable as the sea”_

 

In the end, she blamed her father for her downfall. Sweet, noble, so very human. As wild and all-consuming as her mother had made her, there was still room for the smallest seed of humanity. It took root in her ageless heart and grew oh so quietly. She never even knew it was there until she saw him.

 

He tripped over a rope on deck and fell gracelessly overboard, limbs flailing. He didn’t scream, plunging into the black abyss that made up her true form. She watched him, this young man with a boy’s hair and the eyes of an old god. The water suited him. She suited him. When she swallowed him in her waves, he sank deeper, soundless, weightless. He drowned beautifully.

 

Still, her heart ached when his eyes began to close and his movements started to slow. He was fading and it was the love her human father had left her that saved his life. She carried him to the shore on a wave but her intangible form could not hold him the way she longed to. She tailored her human hands and fingers to fit with his and became solid to hold him up. When he coughed up seawater on dry land, it was her arms around him.

 

He looked up at her with awe that was both familiar and foreign. People often gazed upon her with wonder and fear but never before had they shared the strange warmth in this man’s gaze. He lifted a trembling hand to touch his fingertips to the spiraling curls of her hair and breathed, “You saved me.”

 

She had. But she had almost killed him first. She stared at him, entranced by his damp lashes and the water dripping from his angular jaw. “You fell.”

 

He beamed at her, a child’s grin on a man’s face – bright and eager. The human in her was charmed. “So I did. Still haven’t gotten my sea legs. Brilliant name but I’m beginning to think it’s a silly myth.”

 

“Myths are truths disguised as stories to make humans feel safe.”

 

His smile widened and he dropped his hand from her hair. She wanted it back and hated her father suddenly for the weakness. Want. Need. Things far too human to survive her.

 

“I can see that now,” he said, still watching her in quiet fascination. “What are you? A mermaid?”

 

She recoiled and kicked a leg at him for the slight. “Do I look like a filthy mermaid?”

 

He bit his lip against his amusement, shaking his head. “No, sorry. Silly question. I could guess again but I should warn you, I’m rubbish at this game.”

 

Lifting her chin imperiously, she eyed him down the bridge of her nose and said, “I am goddess of the seven seas and every living thing in it.”

 

“Blimey, what a title.” His mouth twitched and his thin brows lifted. “Got a name in there somewhere?”

 

She paused, staring at him. No one had ever asked before. No one had ever concerned themselves with who she was, only what she was. “River Song.”

 

His eyes lit up. “John Smith.”

 

And just as he had fallen into her so gracelessly, so then, did she into him.

 

-

 

Their courtship was a strange one but beautiful and beloved all the same. She could never leave the sea but her sailor boy swam in her oceans to be close to her whenever he could. He swam at dawn and she made her waters calm and cool for him. He swam in the afternoon and she let the warm water lap at his sun-browned skin like a kiss. He swam at midnight when her seas were darkest and she curled around his lithe body, the waves like laughter in his ears until he begged her, soft and petulant, scowling at the vast blue around him.

 

Thanks to her father, her human form was easy to conjure. She never cared for it before but with him, everything was different. She liked to feel her sailor boy’s arms around her. She liked his shy kisses and his hands in her hair. She liked it when her curious hands wandered and made him flustered.

 

He brought her strange gifts from land to amuse her. Flowers and crystal whiskey tumblers, compasses and silk. The sea salt ruined it all until she found a place to keep her treasures safe. When he discovered her little cove, he was insufferably smug for days.

 

Sometimes, he read to her. She sat in the shallows, making necklaces from shells, and he on the shore, reading aloud. River made the waves rise up and lap at his toes, a lover’s caress. He looked up from the page, boyish hair slipping into his eyes, and blushed.

 

For a while, they were happy and she did her best to bask in feelings she had never known before, ignoring the mortality of her sailor boy and the impossibility of forever with him. Life on the sea was a dangerous one, however, and her love seemed to cast a net and catch trouble at every turn. The pirates who invaded his ship were not kind.

 

John Smith was dead before he hit the water.

 

She saved him the only way she knew how.

 

“You want me to what?”

 

River glared, John hanging limp and unmoving in her arms. His blood soaked her skin and his lashes were damp and delicate, just as they’d been that first day when she felt the full weight of her father’s humanity. Kovarian remained unmoved by the beautiful human River clutched but she had stood too long in the cold shadow of this dark goddess to cower now. She had her father’s weakness but she had her mother’s unmoving ferocity. It held her steady, kept her voice from wavering as she said again, “Save him.”

 

“Why should I do anything for you?”

 

River stiffened. She drew herself up to full height in the human form she had never quite grown accustomed to. The skin itched sometimes, like it could not contain all of her at once without soon bursting at the seams. She always bristled and John would caress her shuddering spine with his fingers, a wordless plea for her to stay a little longer. To hold him a little closer. To ignore the call of the sea for one more moment. She drew in a shivering breath and clutched the lifeless body in her arms, fingertips pressing into cold skin.

 

“Because I am River Song, goddess and ruler of the seven seas. I have killed at your behest. I have drowned countless men, offered a thousand souls, all in your honor. _You owe me a life_.” She held John closer and eyed Kovarian with every ounce of her mother’s ire. “His is the life I choose.”

 

-

 

Her sailor boy lived, but not without consequence. Kovarian never did anything for free. They stood in the surf, waves lapping at their ankles, and held each other like it was goodbye. The dreaded ship loomed in the distance, ragged sails billowing in the wind. It was a threat that could not be ignored, even now.

 

John clung to her, his face buried in her hair. “I won’t go. What were you thinking, bargaining with that woman?”

 

Turning her face into his neck, River inhaled the scent of herself on his skin, the sea breeze and briny salt. It mixed with the lingering odor of decay and she shut her eyes tight. “Not even a debt to Death could stop me saving you, my love.” She pulled back, straightening his cravat for him – it was always hopelessly askew. “And you _will_ go. It’s the only way.”

 

He huffed. “River, it’s ten _years_.”

 

“Exactly. Just ten years and then you’ll be free – because I’ll be here. Waiting for you.” It was part of Kovarian’s deal – ten years ferrying souls for her in exchange for his life and his freedom, so long as River was there to meet him when he returned. To an ageless being like her, ten years was but the blink of an eye but to John it seemed an eternity.

 

He watched her with wide, wet eyes. The harsh wind ruffled his hair and stained his cheeks pink. She had never loved him more than the moment he blinked away tears and squared his jaw, letting go of her to tug smartly at the lapels of his coat. “Well then. See you around, River Song.”

 

She underestimated the length of the lonely years without him. Before John Smith, there was no reason to measure time and nothing by which to measure it. In his absence, River is suddenly keenly aware of the slow march of its passing. It came and went like the tide, steady and strong but never quite fast enough to suit her.

 

He had gone where even she could not reach him so she occupied herself as she always had – drowning sailors and carrying ships, sinking them when it pleased her to do so. She made the seas rage when she missed him too much to bear and when she remembered his goofy grin and clumsy hands, the waters were calm and soothing, a lullaby for sailors at night.

 

Some days, she lingered in her human form just to feel closer to him. She would listen to the beat of her heart and imagine it was his, strong and steady under her ear on his chest. She visited her cove of treasures often, pouring over every little gift he had ever given her. She wrote to him there, a letter every day for the ten years he was gone – all tucked away in a sturdy little blue book he had given her once. It would make a nice gift, she thought, when he finally returned to her again.

 

The human part of River Song loved her sailor boy desperately and would have waited another ten years if she had to, just for a glimpse of his dear face. The part of her that would always belong to the sea was fickle. It was wild and untamable and raged against the bonds of devotion. As hard as she fought against her own nature, her father’s love was not strong enough to overcome her mother’s spirit.

 

When John Smith returned from ten years at sea, she was not there to greet him.

 

-

 

Kovarian was waiting for her.

 

River threw herself at her feet, her shoulders trembling with grief and guilt and more self-loathing than any mortal being could possibly hope to bear. The goddess railed against such weakness. The human was long past caring about dignity. “Please.”

 

“His life is forfeit. You weren’t there.”

 

“I wanted to be. You know I wanted to be there -”

 

“Poor little Song. She takes so much but she never understands how to give back, does she?” Kovarian hummed, a cruel chuckle lurking in the back of her throat. “What will your darling sailor boy think of you now that you’ve failed him? All those lonely years at sea with nothing but the dead for company… looking only forward – toward the day when he would see you again. Such a faithful lad. You promised him, didn’t you? And where were you, River Song? Where were you when he needed you?”

 

Pressing her forehead into the ground at Kovarian’s feet, River swallowed back a sob and shut her eyes tight against the tears. She could think only of John, wherever he was, doomed because human and goddess were forever at war within her. “Spare him.”

 

“You had a chance to save him. He belongs to me now.”

 

Though the goddess cared not for the human sailor, she still roared right alongside the human at those words, possessive of the things that were hers even if she didn’t really want them. “ _No_. He is _mine_.”

 

“Once, perhaps.” Kovarian watched River with lifeless, glittering eyes. “Not anymore.”

 

She lifted her head, her cheeks wet and streaked with tears. Her lips trembled and Kovarian smiled to see it, waiting for the offer she knew would come. “Take me instead.”

 

_-_

_“you can hide away but you always have been mine”_

He should have known, should have shielded his heart against her charms. A woman such as she could not ever truly feel love. She was not even a woman, not really. She took the form of one to make him comfortable or when she wanted him to touch her but even his mouth on her skin had never been enough to keep her. Ten years was too long to hold the attention of a goddess.

 

He stood on the shore, feeling the cold wind bite his cheeks and whip his coat around his body, and knew that she had probably forgotten about him the moment his ship disappeared over the horizon. Still, he waited.

 

As the sun set on his only day on land, he waited for the pull of the ship to lure him back and when it did – with still no sign of the sea witch who had promised she would wait – his heart hardened with every step back toward his duty. It was his forever now, thanks to a love that had never really belonged to him. There would be no death for John Smith. Only for those he ferried.

 

Bitterness grew in him like a seed planted in fertile soil. He took companions sometimes, plucked their soul from the water and kept them with him for a while, just to keep the loneliness at bay, to keep the bitter roots inside him from strangling his heart. For a while, it helped but nothing could truly stop the darkness.

 

Years passed with no sign of River but he thought of her every time he looked out at the sea. It was too much to bear and when Kovarian, with a glimmering smile, offered him the enchanted watch, he took it. He put love into the watch, so he never had to feel it, never had to think of her when he gazed out over his ship or when he woke in the morning with the scent of sea salt on his pillow. He kept the watch in his pocket and never opened it again.

 

An infinite lifetime without love changed him into another man entirely. He was no longer the boy with drooping hair and a boy’s bright grin. He was no longer the man with twitching fingers and always with thoughts of his love in his head. He grew older and darker, embittered by his losses. His hair turned gray and his mouth never smiled. He spoke with a growl and his empty heart had never known the caress of a lover.

 

He spent his endless days searching for the goddess who had betrayed him.

 

-

 

They were already screaming by the time he set foot on shore and he imagined they had been since they saw black sails on the horizon. It had become more than just a symbol of death since his turn at the mast – it meant an end without mercy, without reason, with no hope of a journey to the other side. He had long ago stopped ferrying souls lost at sea. He took lives and he kept them, companions for his endless existence. He was a rogue now, a dark legend. Whispers followed his every step, stories accumulating with every stop in every port. The Warrior Captain, they called him, their voices quaking with fear. Not even Kovarian could stop him.

 

John made a gesture to his crew, lurking behind him, watching the villagers scramble for safety they wouldn’t find. “Fan out. Look for her. Kill anyone who won’t talk.”

 

They dispersed to do his bidding and John turned from the village to gaze out over the horizon. The sound of screaming rose in pitch but he ignored it, clenching his jaw as his eyes landed on the glistening water in the distance. The wind picked up, ruffling his coat and kicking up sand. He closed his eyes, breathing in the salt air, waiting.

 

 

He used to be able to sense her presence. He could hear her in the breeze, feel her in the rolling waves. Since he returned from his ten-year sentence, he hadn’t felt a damn thing. She truly had abandoned him.

 

Scowling, John turned his back on the water and stalked his way up the beach and toward the burning village. He stepped over broken bodies and met his companions outside the destroyed church in the town square. They held a quivering man in their grasp, forcing him to his knees. Approaching them with a raised brow, John asked, “Got a gift for me?”

 

“He knows something.”

 

One of them shoved a dagger under the man’s throat and he flinched away, whimpering. “Please, I don’t, I swear -”

 

“She’s not in the water,” John snapped, crouching to glare at the man. “Which means she’s on land. Hiding like a coward amongst the peasants.”

 

“Please -”

 

John tutted and shook his head. “I’m afraid that isn’t what I’m looking for.”

 

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

 

“River Song,” he growled, watching his companion dig the knife in just deep enough to nick the skin of his throat. The man’s eyes watered and John smirked. “Where is she?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Very well.” He rose to his full height once more and gestured to his companion. “Slit his throat.”

 

“ _Wait_!”

 

Half-turned to walk away, John glanced over his shoulder and eyed the man in annoyance. “Remembered something, have you?”

 

White-faced and shaking, the man nodded. “I-I don’t know where she is but I know her name.”

 

John scowled. “So do I, idiot.”

 

“No, it’s -” He cowered at the dagger shoved under his chin. “She doesn’t go by River Song any more.”

 

John paused, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Eyes narrowed, he forced out, “What then?”

 

“Melody,” the man stuttered. “She calls herself Melody Pond.”

 

It was more information than he’d had in years but there was no gladness in the Warrior Captain’s heart, no love and certainly no mercy. No one in the village was spared.

 

-

 

After months of tracking Melody Pond, it was Clara who found her in a cottage on the shores of a lonely island. Convinced she had been hiding from him, John was infuriated enough to be cruel, even to her. He sent his companions to capture her and drag her back to the ship she had long ago chained him to. They searched her for weapons before they threw her in the brig and found nothing but a small blue book.

 

He didn’t open it but it stayed on the desk in his quarters, taunting him right next the decanter of whiskey he always made sure to keep full. In an effort to find the courage to go to her, he drank straight from the bottle. He’d given her whiskey tumblers once, hadn’t he? She couldn’t understand what they were for. He’d loved to amuse her then, delighted in the furrow of confusion in her brow, the warmth of her smile. All he felt now was cold.

 

Even when he finally fled the temptation of the blue book to stand in front of her cell, he felt nothing. He gazed in at her from the doorway. She was as lovely as he remembered, the whorls of her blonde hair as uncontrollable as the waves she ruled. The curves of her body still made his fingers twitch. He gritted his teeth, clutched the watch in his pocket, and felt nothing. Not even when she turned her face toward the shadows and smiled. “Hello sweetie.”

 

“Sea witch,” he greeted, stepping away from the door.

 

Her smile faltered but she stood when he reached her, hands slipping through the bars to touch him. He stiffened but refused to back away, enduring the way her fingertips felt like sea mist upon his face. She looked at him like she always had, like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to run away or cling to him in devotion. Her eyes traced over his face, the lines around his eyes, the gray of his hair, the new scowling mouth. Her breath stuttered and caught, green eyes welling with tears.

 

“John Smith. The stories I’ve heard… You’ve changed, my love.”

 

He snatched her wrist in his grasp, ignoring her sharp gasp. “If I have, it’s your doing.”

 

She wasn’t deterred by his new gruffness, only curling her fingers around his own like she still had the right to hold his hand. “You can blame me for many things, Warrior Captain, but the state of your heart is your own doing. Perhaps you should fetch what’s left of it before it’s lost forever.”

 

When her hand strayed to the pocket where he kept the watch, he jerked away from her in terror, snarling. “Ten years. Ten years working for that horrible witch, ten years with nothing but death, waiting for you. _Why_ weren’t you there?”

 

River curled her empty hands around the bars of her cell, pressing her face against the cool iron. “I did wait for you. As long as my nature would allow.”

 

He felt his lips curl into a sneer. “Is that all you have to say? You tried?”

 

She recoiled as if he’d slapped her and suddenly he could see her again in the blazing fury of her gaze – the goddess who had stolen his heart. “I paid my penance tenfold, my love, which is more than I can say for you. I owe you nothing.”

 

“Nothing? You owe me -” He slammed a fist against the bars separating them and only felt more infuriated when she didn’t even flinch. “How dare you. I am a slave because of you.”

 

“You’re alive because of me!” She snarled, wild and feral, lifting her chin as he glared at her. “Do you think I chose to remain in this form? In this skin that itches? Do you think I would let you hold me here if I had any choice in the matter? I am bound in these fragile bones because of _you_. Cut off from the sea and everything I know because of my weak, human love for _you_. And what have you done in return? Locked away every moment of happiness, to never be felt again. You’re not even him anymore. You’re a stranger. A murderer. I can’t believe I gave up everything for such a man-”

 

“ _Liar_!” He smacked the bars with his fists again and this time she fell silent, glowering defiantly at him from her cell, beautiful and deadly even now. “You lied then when you said you’d wait and you’re lying now. You don’t know how to do anything else. I’ll not fall for your pretty words ever again.”

 

She swallowed, meeting the heavy weight of his gaze in regal silence.

 

Even without an ounce of love left in him, he wanted nothing more than to kiss her. He backed away from the cell, heart pounding in his ears, and rasped, “You should have let me drown.”

 

-

 

He did not visit her again for weeks, leaving her to languish below decks.

 

Finding her had been his purpose for so long that he had no idea what to do now that he had. He prowled the length of his quarters, ignoring the blue book still left untouched on his desk, holding down the curling corner of an old map. He raided villages for something to do but his desire for destruction had evaporated. Everything had evaporated but for one thought – what was he to do with her now?

 

He could kill her but he damn near recoiled at the mere idea and knew he wouldn’t. But she had to pay somehow for what she had done to him. She was a sea witch who had lured him to her with that hair and those eyes, with promises of devotion. He had drowned himself in her love and in return, she’d made him a monster. She deserved to be punished.

 

Still, after all he had done to so many others, he hesitated when it came to her. Even with what was left of his heart tucked away, she made him so disgustingly weak.

 

After that first visit, he’d been too much of a coward to face her again but she still fascinated him all the same. He couldn’t stay away, lurking outside the door to watch as she pressed her ear to the wall and cooed to the waves lapping against the side of the ship. She acted as though she couldn’t hear it either, which was insane. How could she not? It was a part of her.

 

Intrigued enough to step out of the shadows for the first time in weeks, he asked, “Why couldn’t I feel you?”

 

She showed no sign of surprise at his sudden appearance and for all he knew, she’d been aware of him the whole time. “You can feel me any time you like, honey.”

 

He scowled. “You were always there before. In the water.” He motioned flippantly around him. “In the air. Then one day I couldn’t sense you at all. Why?”

 

For a long moment, he thought she might not answer. She stroked her fingers over the wall and hummed a little, some soothing melody about drowning in all her dreams. It made him shudder and he shifted impatiently, glaring at the back of her head. “I already told you why. Have you forgotten? Getting old, I imagine.” She turned her head, eyes sliding over the length of his frame slyly. She was all mischief until she met his gaze and suddenly the pain in her eyes was enough to steal his breath. “I’m not a part of the sea any more, John. I’ve been cut off – like missing a limb.” She hummed to herself, eyes skittering away from his. “Sometimes I wake up and forget. Then it’s a bit like losing it all over again.”

 

More lies.

 

It had to be.

 

The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

 

John cleared his throat. “Clara told me you’re not eating.”

 

She lifted her chin. “I’d rather starve than wait for whatever you have planned for me.”

 

“Eat something,” he grumbled, eyeing her. “I don’t have a plan for you.”

 

“All these years searching for me and you never stopped think what you’d do once you found me?” River lifted a brow. “Typical human.”

 

“No,” he said impatiently, clenching his fists. “I thought about it.”

 

“And?”

 

“Killing you was at the top of the list. Right above making you suffer.”

 

She scoffed, turning away from him with a murmured, “I’m already suffering.”

 

He watched her return her attention to the wall again, to the sea she could hear just on the other side. Her small hands followed the motion of the waves lapping against the hull and whenever the sea mist splashed over the window overhead, she smiled and turned her face into the spray. Watching her made his chest tighten so he turned his gaze elsewhere and wound up staring at his boots.

 

“Well?” She finally demanded. “Why am I not dead?”

 

“I don’t know,” he admitted, grudging.

 

“You’ve certainly had enough practice.”

 

He flinched.

 

River watched him with glittering eyes, her expression soft and knowing. “You’re still in there somewhere, aren’t you? My sailor boy.”

 

Bristling, John clenched his jaw and felt a muscle in his cheek twitch. “He’s dead, River. He died the day you left him waiting and never came back.”

 

She shook her head. “If he were really dead, I would be too. You may not love me but he did.”

 

“He was an idiot.”

 

“My idiot.”

 

John stiffened. “I was _never_ yours.”

 

At that, River threw her head back and laughed, curls spilling over her shoulders like waves. The sound of her amusement echoed in the empty cells and John steeled himself against the bright sound in the darkness. “Oh my love. You still are.”

 

He left her without another word, slamming the door behind him, but her laughter chased him all the way up the stairs and above deck.

 

-

 

When he retreated to his quarters for the night, shutting himself away from his crew and the temptress in the brig, the blue book called to him louder than ever before. He stared at it and wondered if it held the answers River seemed unwilling to give him. Her words kept reverberating through his mind – _cut off from the sea, I gave up everything, like missing a limb_ – and the smallest part of him that hadn’t lost a young sailor’s naiveté remembered the pain in her eyes and wondered if there was any truth in what she said.

 

Somehow, he knew the blue book would tell him.

 

Unable to ignore its siren song any longer, he poured himself three fingers of whiskey and sat behind his desk. The brittle blue book smelled of the sea and was chock full of her scribbles, each line more desperate than the last. He read the entire thing from cover to cover, clutching his untouched drink in one white-knuckled fist, and felt his heart squeeze in his chest with every shaking word.

 

_My love_

_My only darling_

_I’ll wait however long it takes to see you again_

_I miss you so_

_I drowned a boy today with your same silly hair_

_You are worth the wait_

_I long for the feel of your kicking feet against the tides I send to kiss you_

_You are the only way I have to measure time – before you, the bliss of you, the torment of your absence, and one day soon your return. We shall never be parted again._

_My sweet sailor boy, bring me your shy fingertips and do wicked things with them_

_Some days it is all I can do to ignore the whispering call of the goddess who cares not if you live or die. She hates you. She hates what you’ve done to me. But my humanity is small and mighty. I think of your face and the goddess falls quiet._

_Sweetie_

_Come back_

_The goddess is angry today and I drowned an entire fleet to satiate her_

_Soon_

_Oh my love_

_Sorry so sorry_

_Anything to save you_

_My skin is too small and it itches, my heart aches for you and the sea_

_The water calls but I cannot answer I hate this I hate you come find me my love my doom I need you_

 

The whiskey glass shattered when it slipped from his fingers.

 

John didn’t hear it.

 

He was far too preoccupied with the _tick-ticking_ in his pocket.

 

_-_

 

_“my heart will always belong to you”_

 

“Finally come to do away with me?” She smirked at him from between the bars, lounging with regal insolence against them, ever the temptress. “I should warn you, my love, just because I’m human doesn’t mean I won’t put up a fight. I’ve been wanting to punch you for decades.”

 

Her curls hung limp around her shoulders and though she had grown pale without the sun and tired from sleeping on the floor of her cell, she still watched him with that glimmer of mischief in her eyes. She’d never lost it, not once. Christ, she was beautiful. Even more so now that he was willing to allow himself to appreciate it. Swallowing around the lump in his throat, John held up the blue book with a shaking hand.

 

River sobered at the sight of it, drawing herself up straight and stiff. “You had no right to read that.”

 

“It was written for me, wasn’t it?”

 

“No. It was written for the man you used to be.”

 

He flinched but held fast. “It was true. Everything you said.”

 

“Of course it was,” she scoffed. “I’m no liar, sweetie. That’s you.”

 

John wanted to snap at her. He wanted to say something that would cut to the very core of her, that would make her flinch away from him and make that smug superior holy expression fade from her face forever. He could only stare, his heart pounding and the blood rushing in his ears, ever conscious of the watch tucked away snug in his pocket. He had never been afraid. Not when he fell overboard all those years ago and might have drowned if not for her. He wasn’t afraid when the pirates invaded and ran him through with a sword. He wasn’t even afraid when faced with Kovarian and ten years in her servitude.

 

Right now – with River Song Melody Pond Goddess of the Seven Seas looking at him with softening eyes, love and forgiveness and ageless devotion in her gaze – he had never felt more terrified in his life.

 

“Open the watch, John.”

 

He shook his head.

 

She’d never stopped loving him and he’d grown bitter and old and cruel blaming her for what he loved most in her – her wild inability to be tamed or held down by any man. She’d given herself to save him, bound in this fragile human form and burning at the seams, and he had spent his life hunting her, killing anyone who tried to protect her. And if he opened the watch, he would remember just how much he had loved her. If he opened the watch, nothing would hurt quite so much as his own sins.

 

“Please, John.” River curled her fingers around the bars of her cell and smiled faintly, her green eyes glowing in the darkness. “For me.”

 

His hand closed around the watch in his pocket. It hummed beneath his touch, eager and thrumming. Wanting, needing to be opened. It nearly vibrated beneath his fingers at the thought of release. He pulled it from his pocket and stared at the strange runes etched onto the surface, barely hearing River’s quickly drawn in breath over the sound of his thundering heart.

 

“River -”

 

His throat closed up but she hummed softly in the echoing gloom of the cells, watching him eagerly, fondly. “I’m here, my love. I won’t go anywhere again.”

 

It was a lie and he knew it. It didn’t anger him the way it might have before. It only made his lips twitch. His thumb caught on the latch. In one trembling movement, between one breath and the next, he pressed down and opened the watch.

 

Sensation poured over him in waves. He gasped, breathing in the golden light that spilled from the watch, and dropped it from twitching fingers. The watch hit the grimy floor and shattered on impact but he barely noticed, his head and his heart suddenly full again. Full of only one thing – River. His bewitching love and infuriating goddess.

 

How could he ever forget the way a simple smile from her made him want to burst? How could he forget the feel of her soft curls beneath his fingertips or the curve of her hips under his palms? How could he ever for one moment forget the feel of dawn at his back and the warm waves lapping at his bare skin, teasing him with her caresses?

 

He looked up at her as the light faded and found her watching him through the filmy haze of tears in his eyes. She tilted her head, eyeing him in quiet amusement. “Feel better?”

 

The teasing lilt of her voice was like a salve to a decades old wound and he was across the room and at her cell in two strides. He snaked his arms through the bars and River didn’t try to evade capture, didn’t seem to care about the blood that would always stain his hands now. She let him grasp her curls in his fists and yank her against the bars. Her cage rattled at the gruff treatment but she didn’t care, far too busy molding her curves against the cell to reach him, head tilting up and lips already parted. Her eyes gleamed in the darkness.

 

“A kiss will break Kovarian’s curse.”

 

He blinked at her. “What?”

 

“If you kiss me, I’ll belong to the sea again.” She licked her lips and his eyes tracked the movement with great interest. “I thought you should know before -”

 

He closed the scant distance between them with a grief-stricken growl, their mouths crashing together like the waves cresting up to meet the rocky cliffside. He could never condemn her to a life without her beloved sea, not when he knew how it called to her. She had never truly belonged to him anyway. “We’ll share you,” he whispered against her mouth. “The sea and I.”

 

“ _Yes_.”

 

River leaned in again and she tasted like saltwater. He felt like he was drowning every time he kissed her but it had never stopped him before. It certainly wouldn’t now. He refused to release her hair but she was not so easily satisfied, small and mighty hands roaming his face and his chest, the expanse of his back, as far as her prison would let her reach. She was never satisfied and that at least, had not changed.

 

They parted from one rough, greedy kiss only to begin another, years of guilt and longing between them. John could not bear to part from her long enough to even unlock her cell, cradling her against her bars instead. “I’m sorry,” he whispered against the shell of her ear.

 

She shuddered and shook her head. “You thought I had abandoned you. And I did, John. I wasn’t there -”

 

“You wanted to be, my wee goddess.” He breathed in the salty brine of her hair and shut his eyes. “That’s all that matters.”

 

“I always want to be.” She pressed her palm against the steady thump of his heart and met his eyes, smiling sadly. “Remember that.”

 

“Even now? The things I’ve done -”

 

“And what of the things I’ve done? If you’re going to start counting sins, my love, I’ve had centuries of practice before you ever came along.”

 

Guilt still wrapped its tight fist around his heart but he swallowed and stroked her cheek, forcing a tight smile. “Quite a pair, we are.”

 

“Bespoke.”

 

-

 

With the watch destroyed and his heart full again, it was easy to remember who he used to be. There was no going back but he hoped with time, he might make that man proud.

 

He released his companions, ferrying them to the afterlife where they belonged. It was the last journey he made with his dark and tattered ship. He borrowed a new one with bright blue sails and without the black ones to recognize him by, most people knew him only as a stranger. Though he would never be able to atone for the death and destruction he had left in his wake, he would never stop trying. He roamed the seas free of Kovarian once more, passing from port to port, helping and learning. He hadn’t felt so much like River’s sailor boy in years.

 

Visiting her was as simple as throwing himself overboard and into the dark embrace of the sea. She always welcomed him home.

 

And sometimes she visited too. With Kovarian’s curse broken, she changed from one form to the next at will. For brief stretches of time, she would come aboard his ship and pretend to sail it better than he. She spent days with him in his quarters, lost in his sheets and his kisses, making his bed smell of the sea.

 

“Would any kiss have broken the curse?” He’d asked one day, lying on his side and gazing at her, naked and beautiful curled against him, still catching her breath.

 

She’d laughed at the jealousy in his voice, turning her head to look at him. “No, my love. Only yours.”

 

When she left him for days or weeks at a time, he remembered her choice – when she had one – was always him. It wasn’t in her nature to remain still and he no longer expected her to. Now, whenever she winked at him and dissolved into sea foam in his arms, John only smirked and set a new course, found a new port to explore. She never stayed, but that was fine.

 

She always, always came back.


End file.
